Video services have become increasingly important in today's society. In certain architectures, service providers may seek to offer sophisticated video conferencing services for their end users. The video conferencing architecture can offer an “in-person” meeting experience over a network. Video conferencing architectures can deliver real-time, face-to-face interactions between people using advanced visual, audio, and collaboration technologies. These technologies can transmit life-size, high-definition images, and spatial discrete audio. Specially designed, high-definition cameras can provide quality, high-definition images with superior eye contact. The audio facilitates a full, natural conversation with no perceivable latency.
Some issues have arisen in video conferencing scenarios when the imaging shifts to a set of individuals who are engaged in some type of conversation. Important to this scenario is how these individuals should be rendered to the rest of the audience while the conversation occurs. This presents a significant challenge to developers and designers, who attempt to offer a video conferencing solution that is realistic and that mimics a real-life meeting.
Thus, the ability to develop a system or a protocol that offers an effective architecture for video conferencing activities provides a significant challenge to network designers, component manufacturers, service providers, and system administrators alike.